


Summertime

by karusarchive (cluelesskaru)



Series: We Once Were All Here [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Chuck is a Brat, Everything Hurts, I Blame Tumblr, Mako and Chuck know each other since they were 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cluelesskaru/pseuds/karusarchive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don't walk away.” He whispers. It hurts to say those words, his muscles tense painfully. And staring into her eyes, he remembers a day long ago, and he knows some things can never be erased or unfelt.<br/>Chuck shakes his head and focuses on the problem at hand again, he knows trouble is coming their way. For starters, he shouldn’t be in Mako’s room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summertime

**Author's Note:**

> Remember how Mako and Chuck have the same age, but he graduated from the Jaeger Academy at 16? Yeah.  
> And also, this was unabashedly inspired by Summertime by My Chemical Romance.

**Jaeger Academy - Kodiak Island, US-AK**

**May 15, 2021 - 21:48**

Chuck Hansen is writing into his left arm with a sharpie. _don’t wrestle your students again_ , it’s what he wrote. After the ink dries, marking his skin with his lopsided handwriting, Chuck goes back to rubbing his shoulder. _That stupid cadet almost got me_ , it's what he thinks. Outside, the sun is probably starting to set in beautiful colors, finishing another alaskan summer day. Yet, not one of these future ranger hopefuls has seen one in the past few months. Chuck yawns and looks around; study hall is nearly over, but most heads are still turned to their textbooks. Except for someone sneaking out rather furtively, but not enough to go unnoticed by him. Whenever Mako Mori lurks, there’s always something really wrong

Chuck follows Mako discretely to her room, keeping an eye so he can hide even before she looks around. Her silky hair like a fluttering curtain trailing after her steps.

Chuck walks into Mako’s room right behind her, and she startles so much when he closes the door behind him, that it’s obvious she’s about to do something wrong, “What are you doing?”

“Are you going to report me?” She snaps back, standing rod straight

“I’m not here as your Assault Specialist.”

“We both know that having you here as a Specialist is bullshit.”

They stare at each other intently, _is it okay to punch a girl when that girl is Mako Mori?_ Instead, he shakes his head and asks again,“What are you doing?”

“I can’t stay, Charles” Mako pushes her long hair out of her face. _“Sumimasen¹”_

Chuck had never heard Mako say that word, but knew japanese enough to know that it would usually come with a bow. Instead, her eyes burn into his. He hates her when she calls him Charles. No one calls him that, not even his old man when he tries to scold Chuck. That name belonged to his mother and she is long gone. And then there’s something about the way Mako is standing tells him she’s going to take that duffel bag from the top of her wardrobe and be gone forever. It terrifies him. Something creeps inside his gut and claws at his chest at the thought of Mako not being there anymore. Even though he barely sees her, she can’t be _gone_.

“Don't walk away.” He whispers. It hurts to say those words, his muscles tense painfully. Chuck’s answer sounds like a command, like he’s Mako’s superior, but it’s how quick the response was that surprised him. “I cannot stay cast away like this, I have mastered all my classes, and still won’t be trained as a pilot. You graduated at sixteen, and still I wait.”

She sounds so rushed and stupid, but Chuck knows that being rude won’t work with Mako Mori. “Oh stop whining Mori, you don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, the Marshal’ll probably train you himself.”

She shakes her head, “It’s my parents… It is their anniversary, sensei should have come, but he was busy. I’m just gonna go to the cemetery and come back” Chuck knows she’s lying. Mako never calls the Marshal _sensei_ in front of people, she’s slipping.

“Stay, and if you stay I will wait all night and pray with you until the night is over, or until my heart explodes.” _Explodes out of lameness, that is._ But Chuck doesn’t add that. And there’s his muscles tightening again. Why do I care? It’s almost time to lights out, and still they stare into each other. Mako has always been a fixed point. The world crumbles, and Mako stands, that’s how it’s supposed to be.

And staring into Mako’s eyes, he remembers a day long ago, and he knows some things can never be erased or unfelt.

-~-

They were both twelve, and Herc and Stacker were in a meeting. It was too early to do anything but stare at walls and wait.

“Have you ever even left this ‘Dome, to go anywhere but school?” They had been wandering to pass the time, Mako seemed to know every single corner of the place, and Chuck was sulking.

“I can do whatever I want.”

“So you’ve done everything there is to do?” Chuck was particularly invested in making her feel just as annoyed as he felt.

"I have never kissed a boy." Mako offered, daring him to mock her. She’s not sure why she said it, maybe because she did want to make him feel better.

After a moment to hide his bafflement, Chuck only smirked, "Me neither."

But Mako was never like other girls, he couldn’t fool her (or annoy her that easily), "So you have kissed girls?"

"Lot's of 'em." But Chuck goes red in the face when he says it.

"You don't have to lie to me."

Chuck hates how she had said it, carefully, as if she was trying not to hurt his feelings, or worse, scare him away. So Chuck locked his jaw, took a decided step and smacked his lips into Mako's. Just like that. But they both startled at the touch. He wasn't expecting it to be quite that fuzzy. Mako moved just a little, nipping his bottom lip. It was more bite than kiss, and it lasted only long enough for them to realise what was happening and then jump as farther apart as possible.

"What'd you do that for!?" Chuck nearly screamed, accusingly. He’d gone as red as his hair, and, unintentionally, was clasping his shirt right above his heart.

Mako’s own hand was now covering her mouth, she was suddenly giddy and wanting to laugh at how her lips now tasted of Chuck Hansen’s toothpaste, "You started it!"

“Did not!”

But they both knew better.

Later Mako and Chuck agreed to never tell anyone and even pretend it didn’t happen. Yet, there was no taking it back, they had just been each other's first kiss.

-~-

Chuck shakes his head and focuses on the problem at hand again, he knows trouble is coming their way. For starters, he shouldn’t be in Mako’s room. Then something in her expression strikes him. Am I begging her to stay? It feels like he is, and it’s completely surreal. Yet, with her chin aimed up, it doesn’t seem like Mako acknowledges that.

“Don’t hold your breath.” She breaks the eye contact and gets her duffel bag from top the wardrobe as predicted, shoulders it, but doesn’t look back at the young Hansen’s face. Sometimes he hates being right.

“Okay then, when the lights go out, will you take me with you?” _If you can’t beat them, join them._

Mako just stares, again right into Chuck’s eye. Right at him and it hurts to be looked at that way. A lot of things seem to hurt  these days. Chuck’s heart suddenly seems to beat out of him, downwards. ~Who am I kidding? Things are hurting me all the time. So, could she? Could Mako carry all these broken bone, all that feels broken, all that Chuck has been carrying through six years and all that he just realized, that he simply doesn’t want for the rest of his life. Will she carry him down crowded rooms, unto the highways he used call home?

He can’t know. Not until she agrees to pick Chuck off the ground. His daring expression is a mask, and he makes sure to add more sneer than plead.

Mako Mori bends, still two steps away, and picks something off the ground. _Am I there?  Am I really on the ground?_ Chuck looks down too and sees her take a brick seemly out of thin air (or from under a loose floorboard), she has scraped knees and scraped knuckles, just like Chuck’s. And she shouldn’t be wearing those shorts either, how much more trouble can she get him in?

And then a lip-gloss smile, “You can run away with me anytime you want, Baby Hansen.”

Do I love that smile? No. I hate it. So Chuck sneers some more. “Well, you want to go **now**?.”

“You can run away with me. You can write _that_ on your arm. You can run away with me anytime you want.”

The momentum stretches itself.

Until Mako takes a key from where the brick used to be, and just like that, unlocks the bars that hold her windows closed with a clang. There’s a roar of blood rushing in Chuck’s ears. How come no one comes to check the noise? Is he terrified? He won’t admit it, but he sure is. And he’s been terrified since he was kid. Every single day when people try and put the pieces back together, just for them to be smashed down. Just to loudly break again and again, all his broken bone. Chuck used to do his best to turn off the noise; loud headphones, punching, kicking, killing monsters, all to get some peace. But he doesn't think he has to try right now, probably never again. It is as if, right in this moment, Mako stopped the noise by making noise. The world has never been more quiet.

But how long could they be gone? Could Chuck and Mako find their way in the dark and out of harm?

 

It’s an unspoken agreement.

 

The lamp light blinds Chuck as they climb out of Mako’s dorm. Someone will see the two of us trying to sneak out, he is sure of it, there’s too much awful light. Light like certainty, light like a duty call, clear like the promises Chuck made. Promises that used to run even harder through Mako Mori’s veins. What made her forget? He halts. How did she manage to make _him_ forget? _You can only live forever in the lights you make._ And Chuck does want to live forever, still believes he can.

“Mori, wait.” He holds her arm. “I forgot something.”

“We can’t go back!” Mako whisper-screams, shocked. “We have to go **now** , I have everything we need! The inspection will soon be…”

“It was my mother’s, I have to go back.” Chuck knew that’d shut her up.

He leaves Mako hidden in a shadow, sworn to wait for him.

But Chuck doesn’t go for his room. He doesn’t even head towards the quarters. He goes straight to the headmaster’s office. He knows exactly what to do.

 

Afterwards Chuck hides in another shadow as they ask what Mako is doing out of her room. She must’ve been smart enough to kick her duffel bag faraway when she heard the footsteps coming, when she felt the betrayal. She’s smart, he knows it.

“Moushiwake arimasendeshita²” She answers out loud: _I am guilty and I have nothing to say in my favor._ She doesn’t say anything else, they would have to guess if she was trying to run away or just sneaking out, but they would have to find her duffel bag for that. Whic Chuck makes sure they don’t

  
  


A week later Mako comes back from probation. Her hair is cut short, and she has locks painted blue now, so she’ll never forget. So everytime Mako and Chuck look at each other, they remember all the awful things that still live in their past, that still lives in their heads. So their gaze is an acute reminder of what they can never ever forget. The Promise.

Before his mom died, there was a day when she made Chuck promise he’d be a good boy. He has a crooked way at keeping that up, but that was the memory he always went back to.

Mako does hate Chuck for what he’s seen of her, she hates him a little bit more for stopping her. But she doesn’t know and he can’t know. Where were they going? Were they going to the cemetery just for a few hours? Were they leaving to never come back?

He did almost leave with her. And that’s why Chuck Hensen hates Mako Mori right back.

Though not really.

**Author's Note:**

> ¹ _"I am sorry"_ , said in a formal way, when speaking with superiors or people with whom one is not very close.  
> ² " _I am guilty and have nothing to say in my favor_." Extremely polite way of apoligizing for something that has been done.
> 
> I'm not a Chuck/Mako shipper, but damn, I have too many Chuck feels and don't know what do with them. He's my favorite asshole.


End file.
